Updates from Hartford Create A Crucial Moment for Early Childhood Advocates to Speak Up
Public hearings on early childhood issues may be mostly wrapped up, but with five weeks left in the session, there’s still plenty left to do. Read on for a few key legislative updates and why it’s essential that you contact your Senators TODAY.
Appropriations Passes a Budget for OEC
This week, the Appropriations Committee passed a budget for the Office of Early Childhood. The budget would put $300M into a fund outside the spending cap for early childhood to fund the Universal Pre-K initiative outlined in the Office of Early Childhood’s (OEC’s) budget proposal.
However, whereas OEC’s budget proposal contained line items calling for an increase of 10% of the endowment on Care 4 Kids in FY27 and FY28, the Appropriations budget has zeroed out those two line items in their approved budget. This means that while Appropriations seems to have given the green light to the $300M outside the spending cap, they are telling the Governor and OEC that the proposed additional increases to Care 4 Kids funding were not approved and must fall under that $300M.
New Developments & New Opportunities
Another new development this week seems to be a willingness from the Governor’s office to move away from a preschool-only system towards preschool and infant/toddler care. In the Senate, there’s a new version of SB 1 (File No. 637) that no longer calls for Tri-Share expansion. It also eliminates the call for more subsidizing preschool in the public school system. This is huge, and it’s thanks in part to Early Childhood advocates raising their voices during public hearings this session.
Now, it’s time to speak up again - this time, by contacting your Senators directly about these bills. One lesser-known fact about the State Senate is that many bills are staff-driven, which means Senators haven’t been involved in the drafting of the language of these bills. This means that your Senators are depending on you to speak up now, while all the early childhood bills are still being discussed and negotiated behind the scenes, if you have concerns or praise about aspects of these bills. Click here for a form that will help you quickly identify and customize a message to your legislators - we have language to get you started, but it is very important to personalize your message before sending! Below are some points of concern that have been identified about SB 1 in Early Childhood Caucus meetings, but you should absolutely discuss the things that matter most to you.
SB 1 uses the local per-pupil rate of expenditure as the basis for how much the plan would subsidize early care and education, as well as for how much early childhood educators would be paid. Linking early childhood subsidies and educator pay rates to an established line item that is already expected to grow over time is a good thing. However, this will negatively impact underfunded districts who need funding the most, and exacerbate teacher shortages in the most vulnerable communities. Beyond that, it is a false equivalency to use K-12 per-pupil expenditures as a benchmark for the cost of quality early childhood care and education, because the needs of young children are fundamentally different from the needs of school-aged students.
SB 1 provides funds to families to use on child care before it provides funds to child care facilities to expand and create additional slots for enrollment. Tuition reduction for families is a vital piece of the puzzle of fixing childcare, and we are thankful it’s being included. However, child care providers need to first be able to expand their facilities and increase capacity for enrollment. Reduced tuition won’t have as great an impact if there aren’t open spaces in the schools.
SB 1 creates a parallel to the current state-funded system, in which providers can access the same subsidies without having to adhere to the same accreditation requirements and staffing qualifications. This creates an opportunity in which providers can receive the same level of funding without providing the same level of quality care. It also creates the possibility of attracting more private equity-backed chains to local communities that already have smaller, independent providers, and forcing them out of business. We would ask for preventive language that protects the community-based, independent, and home-based providers from chains and private equity-backed firms. One way to do this is by language that addresses years of operation in said community, and/or ownership that is tied to the demographic of said community.
SB 1’s requires providers to incur costs in advance and receive reimbursement. Many providers are unable to pay their costs up-front, and past experience tells us that the reimbursement system is inefficient, leaving providers scrambling to make ends meet for 2-3 months at a time.
It’s important to note that there are many other, more nuanced topics worthy of discussion in the arena of proposed early childhood policy this session. CTECA is thrilled and thankful that early childhood is receiving such significant attention, and we are eager to continue facilitating conversations towards the goal of forming meaningful policy that benefits Connecticut’s youngest residents, their families, and their caregivers.
